Summer is always an exciting season here at the Chanticleer. Not only do we get to meet and greet many new visitors, but we also look forward to seeing old friends returning for a chance to rest, relax, and enjoy the beauty of Door County.

There are so many festivals and events to take part in here over the summer months that sometimes we lose count! For example, the cherry harvest is in full swing during the middle of July. Why not visit the many farmers’ markets across the region and sample fresh cherries, cherry jam, and fresh-baked cherry pie? There are several markets to choose from, including the Sister Bay and Sturgeon Bay markets that open up on Saturdays from June to October. During your trip, don’t forget to sample some wine, or some of Wisconsin’s renowned cheeses. There’s also the all-you-can-eat Belgian waffle breakfast happening in Brussels on June 23rd if you like heartier fare.

Delicious food isn’t the only reason to visit Door County in the summer, though. There’s also the natural beauty of our waters, trails, and parks. For example, if you love hiking, then you’ll love taking part in National Trails Day on June 1st or the State Park Open House Day on June 2nd. If you’d like to learn more about our local heritage, you can also attend the Door County Lighthouse Festival, which runs from June 7th to July 9th.

On top of that, there are plenty of opportunities to celebrate the arts, like the Birch Creek Concert Series in Egg Harbor. If you’re looking to see live performances of The Bard, Door County has those too – Door Shakespeare is running productions of both Macbeth and Love’s Labour’s Lost throughout July and August at the lovely Bjorklunden estate near Baileys Harbor.

These events don’t even scratch the surface of all the variety that’s available to enjoy in Door County over the summer. The best way to find out all we have to offer is to visit yourselves – we at the Chanticleer Guest House guarantee that we’ll provide everything you need to enjoy your stay in beauty and comfort.

]]>http://chanticleerguesthouse.com/blog/what-to-expect-this-summer-at-the-chanticleer-guest-house/feed/0The Baby Sheep Arrival at The Chanticleer Farmhttp://chanticleerguesthouse.com/blog/the-baby-sheep-arrival-at-the-chanticleer-farm/
http://chanticleerguesthouse.com/blog/the-baby-sheep-arrival-at-the-chanticleer-farm/#commentsWed, 27 Mar 2013 09:58:35 +0000chanadmhttp://chanticleerguesthouse.com/blog/?p=128Spring is here, and that means so many things in Door County. The weather is getting warmer and the grass is getting greener. One of the loveliest things about spring, though, is the fact that you’ll get to see lots of baby animals romping around with their mothers on all of the farms.

What better way to celebrate the new season than to see so much new life around you? We here at the Chanticleer have been getting ready to welcome those who want to experience what it’s like to see Door County in full bloom. In particular, we’d love our visitors to visit the welcome this year’s lambs.

Yes! We have sheep at the Chanticleer Guest House! Our lambing season starts on April 10th, just in time for the flowers to bloom. If you stay with us during the spring, you’ll not only get to see Door County at its springtime best, but you’ll also get to experience the pleasures of petting a beautiful young lamb’s wool.

During your stay, there are many other festivals and events you can attend to welcome the return of spring. For example, there’s the Festival of Blossoms, which is celebrated across the entire county from mid-April until June. You can tour our region from one end to the other and take in all of the gardens, woods, and orchards in full bloom.

If you’re up for a guided tour, there’s also the Spring Trolley Blossom Tour, which happens every Saturday morning in April and May, as well as a daily series of Segway eco-tours. During your trip, you’ll have the chance to see all of Door County’s beauty, from cherry orchards to lighthouses to the lakeside bluffs. If you prefer the water, we recommend attending the Sturgeon Bay Shipyard Tours on May 5th.

Whatever you decide to see, you’ll be guaranteed a pleasurable, relaxing stay at the Chanticleer Guest House. Our private cabins will provide you with the perfect setting to rest and rejuvenate after a busy day of farms, flowers, and local color. We look forward to welcoming you this spring!

]]>http://chanticleerguesthouse.com/blog/the-baby-sheep-arrival-at-the-chanticleer-farm/feed/0Ring in the New Year in Door Countyhttp://chanticleerguesthouse.com/blog/ring-in-the-new-year-in-door-county/
http://chanticleerguesthouse.com/blog/ring-in-the-new-year-in-door-county/#commentsWed, 19 Dec 2012 12:00:18 +0000Darrinhttp://chanticleerguesthouse.com/blog/?p=120New Year’s Day is a time of celebration and fresh beginnings. And what better way to do that than spend New Year’s with new friends (and your old favourites) here at our inn? The Chanticleer Guest House has been decorated for the season, and we’ve got both spacious and cozy rooms available – perfect for a party or a more intimate gathering.

However, the stroke of midnight doesn’t have to mean the end of your fun. Several events are happening this coming New Year’s in Door County. Nearby in the town of Egg Harbor, there’s the annual New Year’s parade, which happens rain or shine – a perfect way to enjoy the sights and sounds of our part of Wisconsin, with live music, food vendors, and ice sculptures.

If you’re feeling brave, you can also head down to Lakeside Park to take part in a Polar Bear Swim in Lake Michigan – though you might want to pack some blankets and a thermos of hot tea or coffee to help warm you up after your dip in the lake!

Of course, there are many things to do in Door County at this time of year, New Year’s Day or no. In particular, you can take advantage of the hiking trails close to our inn, or take part in many other winter activities, like sleigh rides, skiing, and snowshoeing.

The winter snow is always a beautiful sight to behold – what better way to take it in than spending time outside, enjoying nature and healthy activity? We feel that Door County has a rare type of beauty, and love more than anything to show it to others. In particular, it always seems fitting to have visitors with us during New Year’s, so that they can experience the beauty we see every day for the first time.

We wish you and your family a holiday season filled with hope and love – and a Happy New Year!

]]>http://chanticleerguesthouse.com/blog/ring-in-the-new-year-in-door-county/feed/0Celebrate Christmas in Door County With Chanticleerhttp://chanticleerguesthouse.com/blog/celebrate-christmas-in-door-county-with-chanticleer/
http://chanticleerguesthouse.com/blog/celebrate-christmas-in-door-county-with-chanticleer/#commentsWed, 05 Dec 2012 10:00:06 +0000Darrinhttp://chanticleerguesthouse.com/blog/?p=112Christmas is just around the corner, and you know what that means – it’s the perfect time to get away and enjoy the holidays with your family in the peace and quiet of Door County. With winter just starting, you can enjoy a time of rest and relaxation in one of our cozy, beautiful suites.

In celebration of the season, the Chanticleer decorates every single room with garlands of fresh plants to give the entire inn a rustic touch. Each fireplace gets its own decoration, and each decoration is unique.

However, we also pay attention to the most important part of decorating for the holidays: the Christmas tree. We choose tall trees that extend to the rafters of each room and festoon them with ornaments of red, silver, and gold to make them look as festive and welcoming as possible.

The Christmas celebrations extend all the way across the county, in fact. From concerts to festivals, Door County will help you celebrate Christmas with your family in style. For example, you can visit the Merry-Time Festival of Trees at the Door County Maritime Museum until December 11th.

The festival is a wonderful way to introduce your family to the delights of the region and to learn more about the Door County Community. You can even take part in a raffle to win your own uniquely decorated Christmas tree to take home with you!

You can also take part in decorating a gingerbread house at other local establishments – what better way to spend time with your family than working together to create something delicious?

Christmas is a time of sharing and togetherness as we buy gifts for each other and appreciate each other’s company. What better way to do that than spend the holiday in comfort with your friends at the Chanticleer Guest House?

]]>http://chanticleerguesthouse.com/blog/celebrate-christmas-in-door-county-with-chanticleer/feed/0Thanksgiving in Door Countyhttp://chanticleerguesthouse.com/blog/thanksgiving-in-door-county/
http://chanticleerguesthouse.com/blog/thanksgiving-in-door-county/#commentsWed, 21 Nov 2012 10:00:21 +0000Darrinhttp://chanticleerguesthouse.com/blog/?p=95Thanksgiving is wonderful in Door County. Forget frantically trying to buy the latest gadgets during a Black Friday sale – why would you want to have all that stress when there are so many other lovely things to do at this time of the year?

With the changing of the seasons and the cool nip of frost in the air, it’s the perfect time to settle down with family, curl up in front of a fire, and celebrate love and togetherness with a fine meal. If you’re looking to take a holiday and celebrate Thanksgiving with your family in Door County, the Chanticleer Guest House is the perfect place to do so. Our comfortable and cozy suites will give you just the touch of home that you’re looking for when you’re away.

There are plenty of other things you can do here during Thanksgiving besides having a feast. Why not consider attending the Thanksgiving Day Parade on November 22nd, which is only a short drive away in Jacksonport? Even better, you can enjoy the fresh air on one of Door County’s many hiking trails and work up an appetite ahead of Thanksgiving dinner.

While you’re in town, you can spend the days before and after the holiday sampling Door County’s fine local food, including its artisanal cheeses and plentiful local wines. You may enjoy it so much that you won’t want to leave! If you want to inquire about other local attractions or activities, let us know – we’ll be happy to help you make the most of your stay.

Thanksgiving is a time of thoughtfulness and caring for others. With our comfortable suites – which we’re already decorating for the holidays! – Chanticleer Guest House will give you the perfect backdrop to relax, connect, and spend time with the people you love.

Before you know it, “‘tis the season” will be here. We love the holiday season when we deck out the Chanticleer in full holiday décor. It all starts in early November, when we begin setting up and decorating our Christmas trees. Each suite, cabin, and common area gets its own Christmas tree.

After Thanksgiving, I hand-make fresh evergreen garlands and install them above each fireplace. Accented with hydrangea flowers, pine cones, boxwood branches, and rosehips, the garland really makes the suites and cabins feel homey! We try to decorate each suite differently, using different types of evergreens for each.

If you are looking for a quiet time to see Door County, the holiday season is perfect. You can enjoy your visit without having to worry about traffic, crowds, or dinner reservations! Sturgeon Bay has its city-wide celebration, “Christmas by the Bay,” from Friday November 16th to Sunday November 18th. There are other activities planned throughout the county all the way up through Christmas, like the “Holly Days” in late November in Egg Harbor.

If you like music, you’re bound to enjoy the annual Christmas concert of the Peninsula Singers, a lovely choir in Door County. They’ll be hosting two concerts, in fact – one in Sturgeon Bay on December 8th, and a second in Sister Bay on the 9th. Don’t forget that with autumn just behind us, you can also enjoy delicious specialties like hot apple cider and other late-harvest goodies.

However, it just wouldn’t be winter without spending a little time outdoors, and there are plenty of opportunities for you to enjoy the snow. Door County offers a variety of winter activities, like skiing, snowshoeing, and snowboarding, not to mention sleigh rides, sledding, and ice fishing. With so many things to choose from, you may not even want to leave!

The best part is that the Chanticleer bed and breakfast is open throughout the holidays, along with many other businesses in Sturgeon Bay. Treat yourself and spend the holiday season with us!

]]>http://chanticleerguesthouse.com/blog/christmas-in-door-county/feed/0B&B Door County Autumn Splendorhttp://chanticleerguesthouse.com/blog/autumn-splendor/
http://chanticleerguesthouse.com/blog/autumn-splendor/#commentsWed, 24 Oct 2012 09:00:20 +0000Darrinhttp://chanticleerguesthouse.com/blog/?p=79Autumn would be our favorite season…if only it didn’t lead into winter! All kidding aside, there are few places in Wisconsin more beautiful than Door County during autumn. The colors of the leaves – vivid shades of orange, red, purple and yellow – are spectacular this year.

Autumn at Chanticleer Guest House

Flocks of migrating geese are a common sight now, as are flocks of robins and bluebirds preparing for their journey south. Here at the Chanticleer Guest House, we have decorated for autumn. Bryon had a bumper crop of pumpkins, which he placed around the inn, along with corn stalks and Indian corn. The gardens are full of late-blooming asters, butterfly bushes, and the last shrub rose blossoms of the year.

Why not grab a hot mug of apple cider and go for a walk on the trails? Door County’s apple harvest is in full swing. The orchards around us are loaded with apples and there are several varieties to choose from. Our favorite is still the Honeycrisp, but Gala, Cortland, and Red Delicious apples are all wonderful choices for the season. Make sure to plan a trip up to Door County soon, since the apples and colorful leaves will not last long.

Apples aren’t the only wonderful thing about Door County in autumn, as the region is full of artisanal cheesemakers. When you visit us, why not attend some cheese tastings in the area and learn more about where Wisconsin’s reputation for making the best cheese in the country comes from?

Of course, the best thing to pair with our wonderful local cheeses is some wine, and there are several nearby wineries to choose from. Whether you want to try some of our amazing Merlots, Rieslings, or even cherry wine – cherries being a specialty crop around here – Door County’s wineries will not disappoint. Once you’ve tasted and sipped to your heart’s content, you can return to the comforts of the Chanticleer – we’ll give you a restful and relaxing experience that will provide the perfect finish to your trip.

In a few weeks, Bryon and I will have completed 18 years of inn keeping.It seems like yesterday that guests would arrive and ask us if our parents owned the place!Ah, the good old days…Now couples arrive (who look like they could be our children) and call us sir!The average length of time most people own a bed and breakfast is around 7 years.Here are a few reasons we still enjoy operating the Chanticleer Guest House after 18 years…

Most of our best friends are people who have stayed at the inn.We have met so many wonderful people over the years, and that is what makes our job so enjoyable.

We have our own private living space and respect the privacy of our guests.In the old days, bed and breakfasts were single family homes in which you would rent a bedroom.Guests would share a common bathroom and actually use the owner’s living space.We have our private living area to relax in, and we try to provide the same atmosphere for our guests.Can you image all of us fighting over the television remote?!?

Treat everyone who walks through the door with respect.After 18 years, it has made being an innkeeper a fun career and it also makes guests enjoy coming back.

We enjoy that fact that most people are happy when they are on vacation!

So many wonderful occasions have occurred at the Chanticleer over the years.Couples have celebrated birthdays and anniversaries, and we’ve hosted weddings and wedding receptions.Several couples have been engaged here and we suspect one or two children have been conceived here!We do promote ourselves as a romantic bed and breakfast!

We have so many fun and interesting stories after running the Chanticleer for 18 years.Guests say we should write a book.Well, we are starting off with a blog!Here’s to 18 years of inn keeping and to many more!

Before welcoming our first guests in October of 1993, we welcomed our flock of sheep. With 30 acres of property, 15 acres of which were pasture land, we thought bringing a flock of sheep from home was a perfect fit for a county inn. We raise Border Leicester sheep; an ancient wool breed, which originated in the “Border” area of Great Britain. Border Leicester sheep are know for their long, lustrous wool, which is excellent for hand spinning.

Many guests of the Chanticleer ask, “What does it mean to have a working sheep farm”. Our answer to that common question is we actually shear our sheep, produce lambs in the spring and sell lambs for breeding, and for market.

We try to shear our sheep in the spring time, before the ewes have their lambs. Shearing at this time of the year helps motivate the ewes to lamb in our barn, out of the elements, which is both helpful to the lambs and the innkeeper! Lambs are born in late March, or early April, and lambing time is the most stressful time of the year when dealing with our sheep. Darrin goes out every couple of hours, day and night, to check on the ewes and to see if any lambs are being born. While most often there are no complications, sometimes we have to help a ewe give birth, or motivate a lamb to start nursing.

Years ago, we used to ship our wool to a woolen mill and have our wool processed into yarn. A good friend of ours would knit the wool into sweaters and we would offer them for sale at the inn. The cost of shipping wool became extremely expensive and our friend married, so we stopped producing wool sweaters. Now, the wool we shear is either given away, or we toss it into the woods for the animals to use for nesting material. If any reader knows of someone who could use some raw wool, please send them our way!

Many of our guests come from large cities and rarely see livestock, such as sheep. Although they are extra work, we thoroughly enjoy raising lambs and our guests seem to appreciate being able to watch them graze around the inn. Please send us your sheep questions and check out the photos of our sheep on our website.

Although there are innumerable reasons to visit Door County, here are our 10 favorite reasons to visit the peninsula…

Natural Beauty.From farm fields, to orchards, to shoreline and woodlands, we think the natural beauty of Door County is the main reason to visit.

The Arts.With such a small population, Door County is blessed with such a wonderful variety of performing arts.Third Avenue Playhouse, in Sturgeon Bay, and Peninsula Players and American Folklore Theater, both in Fish Creek, are among our favorites.

300 miles of Shoreline.The most of any county in the United States!You don’t have to travel far to enjoy the shores of Lake Michigan and Green Bay.

Galleries Galore.Whether you are into ceramics, glass, pottery, painting or fiber arts, Door County has an artist’s gallery for everyone.

Delicious Dining.From fine dining, fish boils or a burger and beer…if you like to eat, Door County is the place for you.

For the Birds.Very few places in Wisconsin have more variety of birds to watch.Summer residents include sandhill cranes, bluebirds, grosbeaks, wrens, hawks, orioles, just name a few.We even have white pelicans as a summer resident!Fall and spring migration bring swans and other waterfowl.Make sure to bring your bird guide and binoculars.

Cherry and Apple Picking.Commercial orchards have been established in Door County since the early 1900’s.They still exist.However, smaller orchards allow visitors to pick their own cherries and apples.

Shop ‘til you Drop.There’s no shortage of shops, stores and boutiques on the peninsula.Each town in Door County has their own quaint shopping district and what better way to spend a rainy afternoon.

Wine tasting.There are several excellent wineries in Door County.All offer wine tasting and several provide guided tours, which show the wine making process up close.From California style wines to Door County fruit wines, you’ll enjoy sampling and taking a couple of bottles home.

Out on the Water.Kayaking or canoeing give visitors an intimate view of the shoreline.If you are not that adventurous, rent a sail boat charter, fishing charter or enjoy the relative luxury of the Harbor Lady dinner cruise ship.

Whatever you enjoy doing, we know you will have a terrific time visiting Door County!